Special coverage of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War

The Willard: Where hope collapsed as slavery raged

One hundred fifty years ago this month, 132 delegates from 21 states bickered and bargained as they tried to bridge the chasm between them in a conference at the landmark D.C. hotel. They failed, and six weeks later, the Civil War began.

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They shouted, argued and one day almost came to blows before their chairman, a former U.S. president, yelled, "Order!"

Then, the day before Valentine's Day 1861, one of the aged attendees passed away in his hotel room, begging colleagues from his deathbed to save the Union so he could die content.

They failed.

Indeed, there wasn't much peace at all during the "Peace Convention" at Washington's Willard Hotel that winter. And despite the dying wish of sickly old Ohio Judge John C. Wright, his beloved Union was soon torn in half.

There, 150 years ago this month, 132 delegates from 21 states bickered, bargained and tried in vain to bridge the chasm that widened beneath them even as they met.

Six weeks after they adjourned, the war began. And the memory of the men and their meeting faded.

But for three weeks that February - the last winter of peace for four years - there was hope among the smoky parlors of the Willard that, as the Washington Evening Star wrote, "the threatening cloud is . . . rapidly passing off the horizon of the country's future."

The Lincoln foundation is scheduled to hold its inaugural meeting at the hotel Thursday, when it will announce its mission, call for proposals and host a reading by actor Stephen Lang of Lincoln's famous "Farewell to Springfield" address.